Nuclear Power – Page 19

November 2, 2024 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Fukushima: Stumbling Through Deconstruction of Reactor Meltdowns

By John LaForge, Z Network. Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Melted fuel still vexing test extraction methods

Thirteen years on from the catastrophic triple explosions and reactor meltdowns at Fukushima-Daiichi in NE Japan, emergency responders are still trying to observe and examine the melted fuel under the reactors (sometimes called “corium”). Contractors from Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) have repeatedly failed in attempts to robotically collect a mere three-grams (one 10th of an ounce) of the corium from reactor 2, a project that started three years ago.

The company Amentum [1] working for Mitzubishi Heavy Industries, has built some robotic machinery to try and retrieve a smidgeon of corium to find out what state the meltdown is in [2] because, as National Public Radio reported, “the exact nature of the debris is currently unknown.” [3]

Amentum is trying to build an extraction tool that can function in a radiation zone so fierce that it wrecks most machinery. A 2015 attempt to look inside Unit 1 with a device built by Hitachi-GE Nuclear failed after three hours.[4] Amentum’s first attempt in reactor 2 was stalled August 22 after the long pipe system was found to have been mis-assembled. Then Sept. 18, video problems halted the second try. The AP reported that the probe is “maneuvered remotely by operators at another building because of the fatally high radiation emitted by the melted debris.” [5]

Still, teams of workers have to do15-minute rotating shifts — to limit their exposure to the wreckage’s radioactivity level — preparing the probe for another attempt. Industry slang for the team members is “sponges.” Recovering a mere 3 grams is scheduled to take two weeks because the slow-moving robotic plucker tends to get stuck in the tangled debris and takes a tortured path past meltdown-produced obstacles.

The mission of the 3-gram retrieval program is to determine whether if it’s possible to eventually retrieve and containerize all 880 metric tonnes — 300 tonnes per reactor — of what the Associated Press called “fatally radioactive” wreckage, to keep it out of the environment for eons. Some critics have said decommissioning the whole site could take 100 years.

The idea of covering the whole radioactive malignancy with a roof — like the shed that was installed over the Chernobyl reactor site — is unpopular because of the area’s continuous earthquake activity and the risk of another major quake and tsunami.

Plutonium on the Wind

Nuclear reactors at Fukushima and everywhere smash apart uranium atoms creating a lot of heat to boil water. This atom smashing inside reactors produces radioactive poisons like cesium, iodine, strontium and dozens of others — including plutonium. In addition to this reactor-borne plutonium at Fukushima, about 6% of the fuel in reactor No. 3 was made of plutonium itself. [6]

Some of this plutonium from inside the three destroyed reactors was released to the environment by the meltdowns and explosions of March 2011. On Nov. 15, 2020, the Journal Science of the Total Environment published the report, “Particulate plutonium released from the Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns” noting that plutonium-239 was dispersed widely disaster.[7]

Plutonium, the most toxic substance known to science, was dispersed “up to 230 km away” (142 miles) from the reactor site, the researchers found.

Long-distance dispersion of plutonium was the result of micro-particles being blown by the wind. Five isotopes of plutonium were released including Pu-238, -239, -240, -241, and -242. Some plutonium persists environmentally and contaminates the food chain for 240,000 years.

In 2023, the journal Chemosphere reported a study’s findings of large amounts of highly radioactive cesium-rich micro-particles (CsMPs) in an abandoned school building close to the Fukushima Daiichi site. [8]

Plumes of the microparticles penetrated the building during the meltdowns of March 2011. Phys.org reports that the contamination poses “a threat to human health if inhaled. The study shows that indoor CsMPs should be considered in safety assessments and in building clean-up efforts.”

Long-term Effects of Dumping Unknown, Scientist Warns

Japan hosted the 10th Pacific Island Leaders Meeting in Tokyo last July, which was attended by most leaders of the18-member Pacific Islands Forum.

A hot topic was Japan’s dumping of tens of thousands of tons of contaminated Fukushima wastewater into the Pacific Ocean. The dumping was protested by Pacific rim countries and many, including China and Russia have banned imports of seafood products from the region’s waters. Some 60,000 tons of the wastewater has been discharged by August 2024.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida assured the island leaders gathering that the discharge of the wastewater was being done “in compliance with international safety standards and practices.” [9] Yet the controversial dumping continues to be criticized by scientists.

In Tokyo, director of the Kewalo Marine Laboratory at the University of Hawaii, Research Professor Robert Richmond, complained that questions remain regarding the effectiveness of the water filtration system, known as ALPS, and about the radioactive contents of the thousands of storage tanks of wastewater.

In October 2018, Tepco admitted that its wastewater filter system, had failed to remove dangerous elements and the company publicly apologized. [10] Tepco promising to re-filter the wastewater, noting that 84% of the 890,000 tonnes then held in tanks (today there are 1.3 million tonnes) still contained high concentrations of iodine-129, ruthenium-106, technetium-99, and cabon-14. Levels of strontium-90, a severe human health hazard, were detected in some tanks at 20,000 times the legal limit. Tepco for years has insisted, and most media still report, that its ALPS treatment process removes everything but tritium, including strontium and 61 other radioactive elements, from the contaminated water.

“The long-term effects of this discharge on Pacific marine ecosystems and those who depend on them are still unknown. Even small doses of radiation can cause cancer or genetic damage,” Prof. Richmond said in a statement to BenarNews after the gathering.

Richmond called Japan’s current radiation monitoring system as inadequate and poorly designed, and said it’s failing to protect ocean and human health.

“The discharge, planned to continue for decades, is irreversible. Radionuclides bioaccumulate in marine organisms and can be passed up the food web, affecting marine life and humans who consume affected seafood,” Richmond said.

The professor also raised concerns about additional hazards already harming the Pacific Ocean and marine life, such as pollution, overfishing, and climate change. He urged Japan to reconsider its approach. Building the contaminated water into cement structures like sea walls is one alternative.

You can hear Prof. Richardson explain the risks of tritium contamination in an NPR interview, here.

Water Treatment Leaves Highly Radioactive Sludge in Search of Containment

Tons of highly radioactive chemicals collected in the ALPS filters are collected as sludge and transferred to heavy plastic casks called “high integrity containers” or HICs, that moved to temporary storage.

The Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun, published a report on the wastewater August 24, 2024 that clearly outlines some problems with the sludge. [11] The end of article reads as follows:

In addition to the release of treated water, there are many other issues to be tackled.

The amount of highly radioactive sludge, or “slurry,” produced in the process of treating contaminated water continues to increase, but no effective treatment method has been decided upon.

The increasing amount of slurry is stored in tanks, but since there is still a risk of leakage when it is in liquid form, plans call for it to be dehydrated to reduce its volume and then process the substance into solid form.

In 2021, TEPCO filed an application to build a device for this purpose. But the Nuclear Regulation Authority pointed out the risk of radiation exposure to workers, and TEPCO was told to review the design.

As a result, the start of the dehydration process has been delayed from fiscal 2022 to fiscal 2026.

Furthermore, no concrete method has been decided on for solidifying the dehydrated slurry.

TEPCO is aiming to determine the solidification method by the end of fiscal 2025 and start solidification around fiscal 2035.

Advocates Demand Stricter Limits on Nuclear Poisons

The Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network in Japan is an alliance of parents, concerned citizens, and affiliated organizations. The group writes:

“The U.S. FDA has set a potentially hazardous level of ‘allowable’ radiation in food: 1,200 Becquerel (Bq) per kilogram (kg) of cesium-134 and cesium-137.” “Becquerels-per-kilogram” is a reference to the amount of highly radioactive cesium-137, which spewed in large quantities by the three burning reactor meltdowns and which persists in the environment for 300 years.

Alarmingly, this is merely a recommendation and holds no legal weight. Such a high threshold exposes a significant portion of the U.S. population, particularly children and women, to considerable health risks.

FFAN is urging the United States to lower its allowable cesium limit to five Bq/kg for food, nutritional supplements and pharmaceuticals, and that the government quickly institute widespread, transparent testing to ensure the limit. The demand aligns with a similar call by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in Germany, which promotes a European Union-wide standard of four to eight (4-to-8) Bq/kg. To sign FFAN’s petition see here.

Kimberly Roberson, Project Director for the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network, commented on this scandal for Food Safety News, Sept. 4, 2024. [12]

Roberson wrote, “At 1,200 Becquerels per kilogram, FDA has among the highest DILs in the world.

“Standards limiting radiation in food in Japan are 12 times more protective for adults and 24 times more protective for children than U.S. standards. Food too radioactive to be sold to Japanese consumers is allowed to be sold to U.S. consumers and served to U.S. service members and their families on military bases overseas. FDA [limits] for radioactivity in food are non-binding and unenforceable.

“To confront and mitigate the growing public health threat of radioactive contamination in food, Congress should pass the Federal Food Administration Act, establish the FFA to focus like a laser beam on food safety, and empanel independent scientists and experts who understand radiation’s environmental and health effects to advise it.”

The IAEA: International Allowances for Environmental Assaults?

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which ignored its own guidelines in approving the dumping of Fukushima wastewater into the Pacific, has granted approval to Japan’s plan to use some of the 14 million tons of cesium-contaminated soil and debris collected after the Fukushima meltdowns in construction work. [13]

The government intends to get rid of roughly 75 percent of the radioactive soil — if it’s contaminated at or below 8,000 becquerels per kilogram — by using it in road embankments, railways, agricultural land, and land reclamation.

“We are extremely concerned. The IAEA has consistently stated in the past that radioactive waste should be stored centrally and we have supported that position,” said Hajime Matsukubo, the secretary general of the Nuclear Information Centre in Tokyo. He said the limit for soil contamination was previously set at just 100 becquerels per kilogram, and has now been lifted to 8,000 Bq/Kg. “But now they are going against their own recommendations,” he said, reported the South China Morning Post. “My fear is that once they relax this rule, they can then go on and ease all sorts of other rules,” he said. ###

— Originally at Znetwork.com. John LaForge, is Co-director of Nukewatch, and is co-editor with Arianne Peterson of Nuclear Heartland, Revised: A Guide to the 450 Land-Based Missiles of the United States.

Endnotes:

[1] Fukushima-MHI, September 29, 2024

[2] The Register online, September 11, 2024

[3] NPR, March 16, 2011, “Plutonium In Fuel Rods: Cause For Concern?” March 16, 2011

[4] The Guardian, April 13, 2015

[5] Associated Press, September 15, 2024

[6] NPR, Mar. 16, 2011, “Plutonium in Fuel Rods: Cause For Concern?” March 16, 2011

[7] “Particulate plutonium released from the Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns,” Science of The Total Environment, Vol. 743, Nov. 15, 2020; and “Particulate plutonium released from the Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns,” July 14, 2020, by University of Helsinki

[8] Physics.org, May 29, 2023

[9] Radio New Zealand, RNZ Pacific, July 19, 2024

[10] “Fukushima nuclear plant owner apologizes for still-radioactive water”, Reuters, October 11, 2018

[11] “60,000 tons of treated water from nuclear site discharged so far,” The Asahi Shimbun, August 24, 2024

[12] Food Safety News, September 4, 2024,

[13] South China Morning Post, September 12, 2024; and The Independent, September12, 2024

August 6, 2024 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Aging Monticello Nuclear Reactor Endangering Human Health

By Joseph J. Mangano

The Monticello nuclear reactor, one of the oldest in the world, has requested permission from federal regulators to extend its license for 20 years. If approved, the reactor in Monticello, Minn. could stay open for up to 80 years after its 1970 launch.

An 80-year-old reactor is an unknown quantity. Only a few, including Monticello, have even passed the 50-year mark. But federal regulators have approved all six requests for U.S. reactors to remain active up to 80 years, and are considering 10 others. Approvals are expected for all, as federal regulators have never rejected an extension.

A nuclear reactor is a complex array of mechanical parts. Over time, these parts become brittle and corrode. Aging at a reactor like Monticello presents multiple threats to safety and health, including:

1. The chance of a catastrophic meltdown increases; with over 3 million persons living within 50 miles of Monticello, many thousands would suffer from radiation poisoning or cancer.

2. The amount of highly radioactive waste that must be stored at each site — forever — in deep pools of water or steel and concrete casks would increase; currently, Monticello waste is nearly equal to the amount released during the Chornobyl meltdown.

3. Routine releases of over 100 radioactive particles and gases, only created when a reactor operates or a nuclear weapon explodes, are likely to increase; these toxic products enter bodies of nearby residents through breathing and the food chain.

These concerns are a reality at Monticello. In November 2022, a leaky pipe released large amounts of water contaminated with radioactive tritium at the site. Xcel Energy, which owns the reactor, failed to report this for four months — until a second large leak occurred — while trying to fix the first leak. The total amount of contaminated water is greater than an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Any entry into local drinking water from these enormous spills is a health risk.

U.S. reactors have operated over six decades, but federal regulators have only conducted one study of cancer in local residents. That report used statistics before 1985, and is thus outdated. No studies are currently planned.

Monticello is in Wright County, close to the border of Sherburne County. Almost all residents of these counties live within 25 miles of the reactor, and are most vulnerable to exposures from environmental releases. These counties are fast-growing areas just outside of the Twin Cities, with a current population of more than 250,000.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, before and just after the Monticello reactor started up, the two-county death rate was 6 to 7% below that of other Minnesota counties — for cancers, and for all causes combined. This pattern is expected in an area with low rates of people who lack health insurance, who are disabled, or who live in poverty.

By the late 1970s, the two-county death rate exceeded the state rate for all causes, and has remained high ever since. If the local rate had remained 6-7% below the state, over 4,000 fewer deaths would have occurred. Cancer death rates are also high; in the two most recent years (2022 and 2023), the local rate was 9% and 20% above the state, respectively.

Many factors can account for an elevated risk of death. But one clue that Monticello releases may have been one factor is cancer mortality among children – who are much more likely to be harmed by a dose of radiation than are adults. Prior to the early 1990s, local child cancer mortality was 37% below the state, but has been 14% above ever since.

The push to keep the Monticello reactor running does little as a solution for future energy needs, as it only accounts for 9% of Minnesota’s electricity. However, safe and renewable sources accounted for 31% of the state’s electricity in 2022, most of it wind power, a number that is rising each year.

Unlike nuclear power, the wind and sun pose no cancer risk, and will last forever. The application to keep Monticello open should be denied, and the reactor should close in 2030, the end of its current license period.

— Joseph J. Mangano, MPH MBA, is an epidemiologist and Executive Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project.

August 6, 2024 by Nukewatch 1 Comment

NRC Apologizes, Admits: Monticello’s Leaked Tritium Reached the Mississippi River

The blue outlined area is the “extent of tritium-impacted groundwater as of August 2023,” from the leaked, radioactive coolant water at Xcel Energy’s Monticello nuclear reactor. The blue shaded area marks tritium concentrations above the EPA safe drinking water limit, extending to the Mississippi River bank. Source: Xcel Energy, NRC Draft Environmental Impact Statement

By Nukewatch Staff

At a public hearing in Monticello, Minnesota, on May 15, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) apologized for public claims made by its staff that radioactive tritium in a massive 2022 leak of cooling water from the Monticello reactor, had not reached the Mississippi River. The river is the drinking water source for 20 million people including the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area.

In opening remarks to the NRC-sponsored hearing at the Monticello Community Center, Senior Environmental Project Manager Stephen Koenick apologized for the NRC’s often-repeated assurances that the leaked tritium from the 53-year-old reactor had not been detected in the Mississippi.

In his shocking yet underreported public apology, Koenick said: “I would like to take a moment to address and clarify some miscommunication regarding the presence of detectable tritium in the Mississippi River. I know we … reported there were no indication[s] of [a] tritium leak [which] made it to the Mississippi. However … in our Draft Environmental Impact Statement, we … conclude there were some very low concentrations of tritium in the Mississippi River.” Koenick went on to say, “So we apologize for this miscommunication.”

As far as Nukewatch can tell, only the weekly Monticello Times reported on the rare public apology and the eyebrow-raising admission that radioactive tritium from the plume caused by the 2022 leak had contaminated the Mississippi. The paper published a report by Nukewatch’s Kelly Lundeen and John LaForge on the front page of its June 6 issue under the headline “NRC apologizes, changes its stance on tritium leak: Now says low concentrations got into Mississippi River.”

Xcel Energy’s 2023 “Annual Radioactive Effluent Release Report” says on page two, “Tritium was detected in newly developed MW-33A [monitoring well-33A] and MW-37A which resulted in MNGP [Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant] reporting an abnormal discharge to the Mississippi River.”

What Koenick meant by “miscommunication” were claims repeatedly made to the press that no tritium had been found by Xcel’s testing of the river. On March 18, 2023, NRC spokesperson Victoria Mitlyng even told the press, “There is no pathway for the tritium to get into drinking water.” As recently as May 7, 2024, NRC presenters at an NRC-sponsored public hearing, also held in Monticello, said on the record that Xcel had found “no detectable levels” of tritium in the Mississippi. Xcel Energy, which owns the reactor, made many similar misstatements. A company website posting still online says, “We test the river regularly for tritium and have not found any, indicating that if it is present, it is at such low levels, and is dispersing so quickly, that it cannot be detected by highly sensitive instruments.” This directly contradicts well test results that Xcel submitted to the NRC on December 18 proving they found detectable tritium levels in the Mississippi River at several points over the summer of 2023. Xcel has applied for a second operating license extension which, if granted, would allow the Monticello reactor to run until the age of 80.

August 6, 2024 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Fukushima’s Endless Quagmire of Radiation Hazards

“The final issue that remains is how to deal with radioactive waste that continues to be produced even as decommissioning of the plant progresses.” — Tepco Representative, January 2024

By John LaForge

Japan’s Ocean Dumping Violates IAEA Rules

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has given its stamp of approval to Japan’s ocean dumping of Fukushima wastewater, claiming that its effects would be “negligible” and declaring that the practice complies with international norms.

Arjun Makhijani is president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and a member of the Pacific Islands Forum Independent Expert Panel on Tepco’s Fukushima radioactive water dumping proposals. In June 2023, Makhijani published a scathing critique of the IAEA’s approval of Japan’s dumping. The report discloses that Japan’s dumping of treated radioactive water violates essential provisions of the IAEA’s own General Safety Guide.

After describing Japan’s system of processing and diluting the radioactive wastewater, Makhijani reports, “At that point the water would contain mainly tritium, but also small concentrations of other radionuclides like carbon-14, strontium-90, cesium-137, and iodine-129.”

The IAEA’s statutory General Safety Requirements demand that: “Facilities and activities that give rise to radiation risks must yield an overall benefit.” Proof of “overall benefit” is required, Makhijani found, because, “There will be some radiation dose, even if small. … Tepco estimates that … the main radiation exposure is estimated to come from ingestion of fish.”

Yet there is no identifiable benefit to dumping 1.3 million metric tonnes of radioactive wastewater in the ocean. As Makhijani wrote, “Countries in the Pacific region, such as members of the Pacific Islands Forum, South Korea, China, and the Philippines, will receive no benefit from the proposed dumping.”

Because “radiation doses will not be zero,” and because “every increment of radiation dose produces an excess cancer risk with no threshold below which the risk is zero,” Makhijani wrote, “countries and people in the Pacific region will suffer some radiation harm. … Some of that harm will go on for decades (e.g., tritium), some for centuries (e.g., strontium-90 and cesium-137), and some essentially forever (iodine-129).

“As a result of the above considerations, the harm to Pacific region countries will outweigh the benefits; indeed, there are no benefits to them. This means that, from a transboundary perspective, the proposed Tepco dumping plan is not justified.”

The IAEA is also violating its binding mandate regarding the required “justification” for potentially harmful actions. Makhijani reported, “During the 8/9 June 2023 virtual meeting with the Pacific Islands Forum and its Expert Panel, at which [I] was present, the IAEA explicitly stated that ‘we are not involved in the justification’ and ‘we are not reviewing any justification.’

“By rejecting its responsibility for key parts of [General Safety Guides and General Safety Requirements] the IAEA is also rejecting the corresponding requirements … and the related fundamental safety principles … on justification.”

In his critique, Makhijani emphasizes: “The rejection means that the IAEA has effectively abandoned the safety and protection interests of the countries of the Pacific region, including the many IAEA member states in the region.

“The IAEA should declare officially that the Tepco plan does not meet key protection and safety requirements and therefore cannot be declared safe. [T]he IAEA has basically jettisoned the interests of Pacific region countries, including non-Japanese IAEA member countries, in favor of Tepco and the government of Japan.”
Earthquakes Routinely Threaten Reactor Site

The dumping of radioactive wastewater from the rubbished Fukushima nuclear reactor site was suspended for a day last March 15 after a 5.98-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Fukushima, the Malaysia Star and Arab News Japan report. Tepco said through a spokesperson that it halted operation of its liquid waste filtering system (“ALPS”), but that “no abnormalities were detected,” and no leak of radiation “was detected.” The comic choice of words implies that dumping of radiation-emitting wastewater into the Pacific Ocean is not abnormal and that its radioactive tritium, strontium, carbon, and cesium can’t be detected. The dumping system was restarted later the same day after Japan’s Meteorological Agency said there was no threat of a tsunami. The shutdown was the first time Tepco’s radioactive waste dispersal was interrupted by earthquake activity.

Radioactive Wastewater Leaks and Promises of Improvement

On Feb. 7, 2024, the faulty wastewater filtering system at Fukushima leaked more than 1.5 tons of highly radioactive cooling water. The worker-caused blunder forced Tepco to promise in April that it will install new piping and ventilation intended to direct any future wastewater spills to fall inside the building. The plan puts workers in danger, and the vent ports would release radioactive gases to the open air. Last October, an accident at the same liquid processing site sprayed five workers, directly exposing them to radioactive materials in the water likely including tritium, carbon-14, strontium, cesium, iodine, cobalt, and other deadly radionuclides. China’s Xinhjua News Agency reported: “Amid raging credibility and safety concerns among the Japanese public following a series of accidents at the crippled plant, Tepco and the Japanese government have been frequently challenged for the ocean discharge as the decommissioning process remains ambiguous.” — Xinhua News Agency, https://english.news.cn/20240407/25ce21ee4ba042f1bf4ab348bff8aca7/c.html

Extracting Melted Fuel and Wreckage from Radioactive Hellscape

Reactors 1, 2, and 3 at Fukushima-Daiichi in Japan — wrecked in 2011 by Japan’s worst-ever recorded earthquake, a devastating tsunami, and a string of explosions — have about 880 tons of melted fuel either burned into or through the three reactors’ foundations. Tepco and Japan’s government intend to remove this fiercely radioactive wreckage and abandon it somewhere else. The melted fuel and the surrounding irradiated structures are so ferociously hot and radioactive that remote-controlled robots have repeatedly broken down in the harsh, underwater environment. (Water is continually poured over the fuel melt to keep it from overheating further.) Last March, Japan’s Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation came forward with three ideas for removing the wrecked fuel, etc., something never before attempted at a site smashed by the earthquake-tsunami-meltdown. Japan’s formal “wrecking crew” has recommended: 1) removing debris while exposed in the air, and 2) solidifying debris in place using a “filler” like concrete. The suggestions also included a plan to submerge entire reactor systems under water after constructing a giant pool-like structure around them. Robots would theoretically then approach, grasp, and withdraw the debris while the water partially shielded workers from radiation. — Arab News, 9 Mar 2024, https://www.arabnews.jp/en/japan/article_117203/

G-7 Leaders Offer Political Cover for Dumping

The Group of Seven colonial corporatist states (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S.) endorsed Japan’s dumping of radioactive water into the ocean at their summit in Italy on June 15, 2023, in an off-agenda move widely seen as a winking promise to protect the global nuclear reactor industry. “We support Japan’s safe, transparent, and science-based process to responsibly manage the discharge,” the G-7 statement said. Millions of people and more than 20 countries around the Pacific Rim have objected to Japan’s dumping over the next 40 years. The discharge is so patently unsafe, so shrouded in long-term unknowns, and so clearly in violation of the IAEA’s own scientific guidelines, that the G-7’s nod can be seen as industrial push-back against the protests in Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, and the Pacific Island Forum of 17 states. — Nippon News Agency, June 15, 2024, https://www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj2024061500119/

Landslide Threat Endangers Cooling Pool

Earthquakes routinely strike the Fukushima area, threatening 1,000 large tanks holding 1.3 million metric tonnes of contaminated wastewater, and endangering the structural integrity of cooling pools holding extremely radioactive used fuel rods (called “spent fuel” by the industry). In January 2024 alone, there were over 18 earthquakes in the Fukushima region with magnitudes of between 2.8 and 3.7. In February there were at least 23, with one measuring magnitude 6.1.

Quakes pose another threat to the devastated reactor site. According to Nuclear Engineering International, a landslide from a massive mountain slope could shut down the adjacent large waste fuel cooling pond. The pool holds 5,197 waste fuel assemblies, and Akira Ishiwatari, a geologist and federal Nuclear Regulation Authority commissioner, told the magazine, “A landslide could occur on the slope in the event of a minor earthquake or even without any tremor.” The authority “is concerned that if sediment from a landslide flowed into the pool, the nuclear fuel would no longer be cooled and, in the worst-case scenario, could eventually melt,” the magazine said.

Tepco said a landslide would not affect the cooling pond but, to avert the danger, announced plans to excavate 100,000 cubic meters from the slope over the next ten years. — Nuclear Engineering Int’l, 17 April 2024, https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newstepco-to-excavate-major-slope-near-fukushima-daiichis-used-fuel-pool-11688881

Far-Off Prefecture Wants Halt of Wild Food Shipments after Radioactive Cesium Found

Another prefecture in Japan has asked for a halt to shipments of a popular edible wild food after it was found contaminated with high levels of cesium-137, a radioactive toxin dispersed in large quantities by the triple Fukushima meltdowns of March 2011. Cesium-137 stays in the environment for 300 years and was spread long distances from the disaster site. Kitaibaraki village in Ibaraki prefecture is 134 miles from Fukushima, yet the government found cesium contamination in popular angelica tree shoots at twice the level allowed by Japanese authorities. Restrictions on shipping wild mushrooms and koshiabura, a species of edible flowering plant, are still enforced across wide areas of the prefecture. Cesium testing began after the meltdowns that followed the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. In the Spring 2024 Quarterly we reported that edible foods up to 292 miles from Fukushima were still being found highly tainted with cesium. — Mainichi Japan, April 13, 2024, https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240413/p2a/00m/0na/002000c

— On Aug. 17 at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific, Nukewatch is co-sponsoring the “Don’t Nuke the Pacific, Protect Our Ocean” webinar to stop the Fukushima wastewater dumping. Register at mp-nuclear-free.com.